Welcome to the boards, slipstream76.
We can credit Drizzt with at least that: He gets more people to post on ENWorld
slipstream76 said:
When I was younger I loved the first Drizzt novels (and I find them still amusing today...). I liked the special feel of the underdark and the drow plotting in their spider-infested cities. Icewinddale trilogy was still good if not as great as the first novels.
Trivia Time: While the Dark Elf Trilogy (Homeland, Exile, Sojourn) are more or less the beginning of the Drizzt story, they weren't the first books written: The Icewind Dale Trilogy came first! In fact, The Crystal Shard was the second FR novel ever - only Darkwalker on Moonshae came before! And since the Moonshae books didn't show too much of the Realms, you could say that the Crystal Shard was the first "proper" FR novel.
Also note that Drizzt wasn't the first choice for the leading role: It actually was supposed to be about Wulfgar at first. But Bob wanted to put some of the stuff from Darkwalker in there (which he had read before/while writing Crystal Shard), to tie his story into the new game world. The sample chapter that won him his bid for a FR novel was about Daryth and his moorhound Canthus. Only later he changed that into the Drow/Panther combo we all know today.
1. sillyness of drizzt. For me it started when Cadderly wanted Drizzt not to give the evil artifact crenshinibon to anyone...never ever. Then Jarlaxle (or who was it) disguised as Cadderly demands the artifact from him and Drizzt (RPG stats: Int17 Wis17 bwahahaha) gives it to him. WTF? Why would he suddenly change his mind? Drizzt stems from a high magic race and illusions should be known to him. But RAS wanted to put even more emphasis on how stupid the drow ranger really is by not letting "Cadderly" heal one of his wounded friends with the most simple healing spell... "no....ehm....sorry, dude cannot do that right now, unfortunately I ran out of healing spells for today (me, the greatest cleric in all Faerun)....so sorry, NOW GIVE THAT ******* ARTIFACT TO ME!
All I say to that: Bluff check
Again: WTF? In "the thousand orcs" he tries to sneak up on two orc scouts barefooted and gets caught....!? Is every orc in Oboulds army at least a 18th level fighter?
Just bad luck. You play D&D, you know how it is. I know I have had my share of rotten rolls lately (and about 5 other guys' shares to boot). So my DDM Marilith is standing right next to some mook, gets 6 attacks with a very decent attack bonus, but still only gets to beat him half to death (he and 2-3 of his buddies should be kebab). And there were a couple of gaming sessions when I was looked at funny when I only rolled init checks like 20-25. "Great rolls" you think? Not so, with an Init Bonus of 18. Kye's probably one of the fastest mortals on and under Faerûn if it comes to spring into action, and still he got outperformed by clumsy pit fiends (and I think even a dragon once).
but orcs? They are meant and desined to be low level fodder god dammit...! ;-)
There we agree on. Well, later this year, Drizzt will get his next novel, "The Orc King", and will hopefully start tearing down the Kingdom Many Arrows.